HER right leg was ripped off by a car during an horrific motorcycle accident.

But as Carol Forshaw gradually learns to walk again with her new prosthetic limb, she feels like the luckiest woman alive.

The 33-year-old’s life was turned upside down when she lost control of her motorbike on a remote Northumberland hillside.

Careering into the path of an oncoming car, Carol was unable to get out the way quick enough to stop the vehicle slicing through her leg, removing all the skin and tissue down to the bone.

She was left fighting for life on the roadside, at Cragside, near Rothbury, as the blood drained from her body.

Had it not been for a crew from the Great North Air Ambulance, which airlifted Carol to Newcastle’s General Hospital in time for a life-saving total blood transfusion, she believes she would not have survived.

Today determined Carol, from Stakeford, Northumberland, is battling to learn to walk in time for her Christmas party, next month, while coming to terms with the fact that she will never be able to wear her beloved high heels again.

And while the accident may have robbed the bubbly party-animal of her leg, her career and her lifestyle, she told the Chronicle that she simply feels grateful to be alive.

She said: “When they told me I was going to lose my leg I just thought my whole life is going to change and there would be no more holidays and no more high heels. But you can only go one of two ways. You can be down and depressed or you can stay positive.”

“I have got my prosthetic leg now and once I get my leggings and my Ugg boots on you can hardly tell. I just feel very, very lucky to be alive. ”

Experienced motorcyclist Carol had just enjoyed a ride to Scotland when disaster struck on July 13.

“We were on our way back and I overshot the white line,” she explained. “A car was coming the other way and we just both collided. I managed to steer out the way but it just took all the tissue off my leg down to the bone.”

As Carol lay injured on the grass-verge her friends did everything they could to stop her from looking at her destroyed limb. But she knew immediately that something was very wrong.

“It was horrendous,” she continued. “I was bleeding from the mouth. I knew my leg was off, and I knew it was the main artery. I was just hoping that there was an ambulance nearby. I could see I had lost so much blood. I thought I was going to die.”

Carol remained conscious as the air ambulance team gently loaded her into the helicopter and set off for Newcastle General Hospital.

“I could just see by the look on everybody’s faces that this wasn’t good, I could hear them saying where is the tibia and fibia?” she said. “I just thought, I hope I make it to hospital on time. I don’t want to die.”

By the time Carol arrived at the hospital her leg had been off for almost an hour and she had lost almost all the blood in her body and was rushed in for an emergency blood transfusion, before being taken to the high dependency unit.

“It was touch and go for a while because I had lost so much blood,” she explained. “Then the doctor said ‘I’m sorry you have lost your leg.’

“And I asked ‘is there nothing you can do to save it’, but he said ‘there is no leg left to save’.

“My bone had become detached from the muscle and they really had to battle to save what was left above the knee.”

Carol has only just been discharged from hospital and is now recovering at home, while trying to get to grips with her new prosthetic leg.

“I’m fine now,” she said. “I have just got my prosthetic leg, so I’m basically learning to walk again. I am like a little foal getting on its feet for the first time at the moment.”

And brave Carol is now determined to get back to normal even without her leg.

“I don’t think it has really hit me yet,” she said. “I’m a bubbly girl and a party animal and I like my nights out on the town and I’m determined to get back to normal.

“I love my holidays, but I will just have to adjust and put on my little skirts and shorts with my prosthetic leg and not care if anybody had a problem with that.

“Coming that close to dying puts a different perspective on your life.

“I am going out in town with my friends for our Christmas party next month, and I have bought a dress that will fit my prosthetic leg inside. I’m not sure how glamorous I will look with my walking stick though. It will be a challenge.”

Carol is now determined to raise money for the Great North Air Ambulance, believing she owes her life to the charity. And friends and family have already donated £2,600 to her collection.

“The air ambulance is just so important,” she added. “I don’t think I would be alive now if it wasn’t for them. It is such a valuable cause, especially to bikers, who like myself, might find themselves in need of extremely urgent assistance in very remote areas. I’m just so grateful.”

Carol would also like to thank a nurse who came and helped her while she was on the roadside. The woman stopped her car and put wrapped blankets around her, but left after paramedics arrived.